Broadband Summit: Connecting America FCC-NARUC Joint ...

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Broadband Summit: Connecting America FCC-NARUC Joint Conference on Advanced Services

Thursday, November 6, 2008 12:00p.m. -5:45p.m.

Atherton Room, Fairmont Hotel 170 S. Market Street San Jose, CA

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~ P R O CE ED I N G S ~

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Commissioner Tate - Good afternoon. I am Commissioner

3 Deborah Taylor Tate and I am opening the meeting for

4 Chairman Kevin Martin, who will be joining us in just a

5 moment. I am so glad to see so many of you all here and

6 want to welcome you to the "Broadband Summit: Connecting

7 America." It is a pleasure to be here today; it is really

8 an historic day because this is the first meeting since I

9 became Chair of the 706 Joint Conference on Advanced

10 Services. Some of you all who do not know, perhaps, the

11 Telecom Act of 1996 established Section 706 to encourage the

12 FCC to bring advanced communication services to all

13 Americans. The Joint Conference is composed of both FCC

14 Commissioners, as well as State Commissioners, and is a

15 Federal/State Joint Committee whose mission is to fulfill

16 the goals of Section 706.

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In the past, we have held fact-finding meetings

18 and reports to Congress on the status of those advanced

19 services, and today we continue down that path. We have had

20 about a three-year pause in activity, and so I am really

21 thrilled that Chairman Martin wanted to re-invigorate and

22 re-appoint new State Commissioners to the Joint Board, and

23 to continue on with a fresh slate of both Federal and State

24 Commissioners in doing our work. Obviously, we have an

25 excellent afternoon and presenters prepared for you all, who

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1 will enlighten us on best practices all across the nation,

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2 technology initiatives, and other ideas that are going on

3 around this nation regarding broadband deployment.

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We have a tight time frame, and that is why I am

5 going ahead while we await Chairman Martin's arrival. And

6 it is now my honor and privilege to introduce Chuck Reid,

7 the distinguished Mayor of this absolutely stunningly

8 beautiful and vital City of Technology, San Jose, who will

9 provide some welcoming remarks to our group. Mr. Mayor,

10 thank you so much for being here. [Applause]

11

Mayor Reed - Thank you, Commissioner Tate. And I

12 want to welcome all the Commissioners here on the Committee

13 and all of our folks that are here, particularly on behalf

14 of our hotel workers, and our restaurant workers, and maybe

15 even our nightclub workers. We have one request for you,

16 that you leave town broke! Spend it all, we really

17 appreciate it. The local economy is not in as bad a

18 condition as the national economy; in fact, we are doing

19 pretty well here locally, relatively speaking. But we could

20 use a few extra bucks spent here. So we appreciate you

21 coming to town, and thank you for bringing this particular

22 visit here to do this great work on broadband access. San

23 Jose is the capital of Silicon Valley, the innovation center

24 of the world, and we are very proud to be the tenth largest

25 city in America, and we think the best days of Silicon

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1 Valley are ahead of us. And we are very anxious to do the

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2 things that are necessary to make sure that that next wave

3 of innovation, and the next wave, and the next wave after

4 that continue to follow the five decades of great

5 innovations that have come out of this Valley, not just in

6 telecommunications, but in many other areas. And we view

7 broadband access as one of those crucial building elements,

8 basic infrastructure, Petri dish of innovation, and making

9 sure that we get that kind of broadband access widely

10 available is really important to our own future. I am not

11 going to pretend to know what the next new thing is, but I

12 do know that you have to have the infrastructure available

13 for the creative, talented people that come here from all

14 over the world to invent, and grow, and build the next new

15 thing. And broadband access is one of those things we need,

16 so I am looking forward to seeing what comes out of this

17 work, and what can be done regionally, as well as nationally

18 to approve broadband access, to make sure that whoever

19 invents the next new thing does it right here in Silicon

20 Valley. So thank you for coming. We arranged the weather

21 just for you, so we just need to know when you are leaving

22 town so we can go back to the regular sunny day -- oh, it is

23 sunny. Thank you very much for coming. [Applause]

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Commissioner Taylor Tate - Thank you for taking

25 time out of your busy schedule. Obviously, we are grateful

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1 to have Silicon Valley because, indeed, you are a driver in

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2 this difficult economic time, and so we look forward to the

3 vision that you have set forward today, and for joining us.

4 So thank you so much.

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Now I would like to introduce my colleague and

6 dear friend, and actually the Chairman is here, so why don't

7 I introduce you instead? My other dear colleague and

8 friend, Chairman Kevin Martin. Commissioner Larry Landis is

9 going to take us through the next portion of our

10 discussions. One of the State Commissioners who has been so

11 active in so many of these issues, we thank him for his

12 service on both the State and the Federal level.

13 Commissioner Landis.

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Commissioner Landis - Thank you, Debbie. Good

15 afternoon. On behalf of the State members, it is my

16 pleasure to welcome you to what promises to be an

17 interesting and informative afternoon. I want first to

18 acknowledge Chairman Martin's leadership and commitment to

19 the ubiquitous access to advanced services. He has been

20 tenacious in his advocacy and advancement of that goal.

21 During this service on the Commission, both as a member and

22 as Chairman, we have made great progress across the nation.

23 I also want to express our appreciation on the State side,

24 for his leadership and support in reconstituting the 706

25 Joint Conference. I also want to acknowledge Commissioner

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1 Tate, who has not only taken on the sometimes thankless and

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2 often challenging task of chairing not only this group, but

3 also the Federal/State Joint Boards on Separations and

4 Universal Service, the latter among the most complex and

5 intractable areas of communications policy; this is the fun

6 one. So those of us from the State side, who have worked

7 with Commissioner Tate when she served on the Tennessee

8 Commission, valued her friendship, her grace, and her

9 collegiality then, as we do now.

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Our colleague and former FCC Commissioner,

11 Rachelle Chong, of California, who is State Co-Chair for

12 Programs, will be joining us later this afternoon. It was

13 Commissioner Chong who, working with Commissioner Tate, with

14 Greg Orlando in her office and with others at the FCC, has

15 been responsible for assembling the line-up of speakers we

16 will hear from this afternoon. So when you see her later,

17 please acknowledge her considerable contribution. We are

18 also indebted to the California PUC and to its staff, and

19 particularly to Robert Haga for a lot of the heavy lifting

20 on this activity. Commissioner Randy Mitchell of South

21 Carolina, who is State Co-Chair for Policy, is unable to be

22 with us today. My colleagues who are with me from the State

23 side are Commissioner Mark Johnson of the Regulatory

24 Commission of Alaska, and Commissioner Krista Tanner of the

25 Iowa Utilities Board. Please also welcome Commissioner Ray

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1 Baum of the Oregon Public Utilities Commission.

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2 Commissioner Baum is Chairman of the NARUC

3 Telecommunications Committee, and we are pleased to have him

4 here with us today. We also have with us today Commissioner

5 Sharon Gillett of Massachusetts, who is one of our

6 presenters. Unfortunately, our other State 706 colleagues

7 were not able to make it because of conflicts with state

8 obligations, but I do want to acknowledge them.

9 Commissioner Betty Anne Kane of the District of Columbia,

10 Public Service Commissioner, and Commissioner Vendian

11 Viafides of the Maine Public Utilities Commission. I do

12 want to mention that Commissioner Betty Anne Kane is working

13 with NARUC State members from all over the nation to produce

14 a broadband Best Practices Guide. We hope to publish the

15 broadband Best Practices Guide some time in 2009, under the

16 auspices of the Joint Conference. We encourage every state

17 and local government with an innovative broadband initiative

18 to submit a summary of the project to Commissioner Kane in

19 the District of Columbia or, if you wish to, just see me

20 during the break and we will make sure that you get contact

21 information. In a few weeks, she is going to have a

22 template on which parties can submit their information, or,

23 if you submit something early, she will get it in the right

24 format for you.

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At this time, we will have opening statements of

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1 the members of the 706 Joint Conference here on the dais.

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2 Chairman Martin will start. Mr. Chairman, followed by

3 Commissioner Tate, and each of the State Commissioners.

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Chairman Martin - Thank you, Commissioner Landis

5 and thanks for helping to all those who helped organize the

6 event. I want to start by just saying that I am

7 particularly pleased to be participating with you all in re-

8 invigorating the Joint Conference. I think that the

9 questions, regulatory choices that both we face at the

10 Federal and State levels related to advanced services in

11 broadband capability are critical for us to continue to try

12 to work on cooperatively and jointly. Broadband and

13 advanced service capabilities are critical from a consumer

14 perspective; they are increasingly driving economic growth

15 throughout the country and, more importantly, they are

16 helping transform almost every aspect of our lives, whether

17 they are talking about increasing the way health care will

18 end up being delivered, and we are a health care

19 connectivity that we worked on with the Commission,

20 educational opportunities to where we will be able to live

21 and how we will be able to work. And so I think that this

22 is going to continue to end up being an important and

23 critical issue, and one in which no one entity at the

24 Federal or the State level has all of the answers, and that

25 is why I think Joint Conferences like this are critical, to

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